Green Comet

Jim Bowering

2012

As Elgin wakes from a centuries-long sleep, it’s to the memory of danger and loss. Even in the confusion of re-animation, he wonders if this time she’ll be there. But then he remembers the mysterious Visitor and the perilous mission that took Frances from him, and darkness closes in again. Even so, there’s always the hope that this time will be different, that they will have found a way. It was always like this. Hope would always rise again, no matter how often it was struck down.

How it happened

Green Comet began in 1994. It also began before then and after then. I’m sure most books are the same. They’re impossible to pin down to a specific date, depending on what you use for criteria. But let’s use 1994, since that’s the year the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet smacked into Jupiter. At that time I was active in the Science conference, one of the Usenet newsgroups. Another member posted, asking for ideas he could use for a disaster story. I suggested some non-ecliptic comets on a dangerous orbit. I wonder if it was a coincidence that the movies Armageddon and Deep Impact appeared in 1998. Probably.-)

The idea began simmering in my mind, and I even wrote a couple of short stories to explore the concept of living on comets, but it was mostly conceptual until about 2004. I decided then to think about it seriously. Since I had a menial job at the time I could spend the whole day thinking about it, and jot down notes after work. I knew I had a story when Elgin and Frances showed up. In 2009 I finished with that job and that’s when I put pen to paper with the aim of getting the story written. Three years later it was ready to publish.

Publishing meant learning how to convert the story to ebook formats, making sure that they were presentable, and adding pictures when I learned that people expect ebooks to have “covers.” Then there was the matter of recording, editing and packaging the audio book. A whole new set of skills. Finally I had to learn how to create and manage a website, so Green Comet would have a place to live on the Internet. Fortunately I enjoy learning.

I hope you have as much fun reading Green Comet as I had writing it.

rjb

Why read this book? Have your say.

arjaybe(March 3, 2017, 11:26 a.m.)Thank you Simone. I'm working on the third book in the trilogy and expect to have it finished by this summer. You can follow the progress on the Green Comet website, if you care to.

greencomet.org

rjb

SimoneCormack(March 3, 2017, 7:38 a.m.)It sounds really great - I think I will give it a try!

arjaybe(Feb. 22, 2017, 11:56 a.m.)Thank you Margaret. It's encouragement like yours that keeps me going. I hope to have the Green Comet trilogy finished by this summer.

tommartin(Jan. 27, 2017, 9:55 a.m.)Thanks for this! Jim Bowering is one of my favourites and I love Green Comet. :)Ungluers are truly the best!

arjaybe(Sept. 3, 2015, 11:59 a.m.)Thanks again to all the supporters and ungluers. Special thanks to Neil.Richards, who unglued both Green Comet and Parasite Puppeteers yesterday. I sent you a personal message, but it reported that it failed to go. Both here and via PP. Consider this my thanks to you. Your gesture, and that of all the other supporters, mean a lot to me.